Thursday, September 20, 2012

"It is in the interest of a tyrant to keep his people poor, so that they may not be able to afford the cost of protecting themselves by arms and be so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for rebellion.” – Aristotle

By Jim Mullen: Barack Obama’s and the New Democratic Party’s goal is more poverty, which breeds more government dependency, which endows government with more political and economic power over Americans.

These tyrants must, above all else, do everything to prevent upward mobility. As people improve their station in life and become more and more independent; they are increasingly unlikely to vote for Democrats. Therefore, Barack Obama infamously segregates people with even a scintilla of American-freedom genes left in their bodies, and then makes them targets of his derision, scorn and ridicule.

Obama and his “party of welfare and hopelessness” claim to work for our middleclass, then use every Marxist trick to destroy jobs and turn the country into a permanent “dependent state of poverty.” We’ve witnessed the greatest destruction of the middle class in our country’s history. Unemployment, food stamps, and disability numbers are growing at record, unheard-of rates as extreme left-wingers wield their idealistic, collectivist power. They’ve degraded much of our old middle class and greatly expanded a new welfare class.

Gasoline prices under Obama doubled, food prices are up dramatically, and he admitted he wanted electricity costs to “skyrocket.” He’s increased the costs and regulations on business to such an extent that economic growth and job creation is non-existent. He keeps underprivileged citizens down and what’s left of the middleclass must claw and dig for survival.

Democrats started this deadly economic fire in 2007 that still incinerates our country. And when Barack Obama came to power he threw his explosive Marxist fuel into the mixture creating an inferno that continues to destroy every sound, free enterprise principle.

During the combined reign of terror of Barack Obama’s progressive, lawless regime and the Democratic Party, American families lost over 40% of their median net worth. Median income for average, private sector Americans fell nearly 10%, and median value of their home equity plunged over 30%. There are over 8.8 million workers on federal disability and 1 worker receiving payments for each 15 people working. Just ten years ago it was 1 in 33.

In January 2007, when Democrats assumed the reins of Congress, unemployment was 4.6%. It’s now been over 8% for 42 consecutive months. A depression-like 25 million people are unemployed or underemployed and Obama’s policies drove millions more to drop out of the labor pool altogether and join the welfare rolls. Labor-force participation is at 63.5%; lowest since the last days of another thoroughly leftist President, Jimmy Carter in September, 1981.

We’re nearing 100 billion dollars a year spent on food stamps, and politicians armed this self-perpetuating program with an enormous advertising budget that begs people to join the welfare rolls. Obama’s redistributors nearly doubled the recipients and expenditures on food stamps. Clinton’s Welfare to Work legislation is now a “work to welfare and disability” plan

Over a million fewer people are working now than when Obama mockingly took his oath of office. Sweet promises of hope to America’s youth culminated in 5 trillion dollars of additional debt heaped on the backs of young people and double-digit unemployment for college graduates.

Obama’s entire presidency is about making Americans wards of, or subservient to, an all-powerful federal government. Well over a hundred million people are on welfare, and Obama must continue the feeding frenzy and this meteoric increase. He must keep people comfortable in their poverty, voting for Democrats, and discouraging success.

This President rails against our capitalistic, free-enterprise system and divides Americans by pitting one group against another. Yet, America’s system provides more benefits to more people and more diverse groups than any other system, anywhere else in the world.

The American dream promised by Lady Liberty’s "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” has been perverted by radical progressive liberals. Breathing freely in a socialist/Marxist society is an abomination to every principle of progressivism. The mighty woman with a torch, standing so proudly as a beacon to a hopeful world, must weep as ruthless, corrupt politicians and bureaucrats crush America’s spirit, and extinguish her flame of liberty. Barack Obama replaced American “can-do” attitude with a “you can’t do it without government” directive.

For fifty years, socialists hammered the mantra of “programs for the poor.” After trillions of dollars and nearly three generations of failed policies, financial ruination, and millions of lost families, we can declare the experiment a wretched catastrophe. Our nation is a mass of interconnected command centers of liberalism; all answerable to Washington, and America is held in bondage by a despotism more likely seen in communist and third-world countries; not in the Land of the Free.

Tens-of-millions of Americans exist in huddled masses of abject poverty in their government-issued hovels awaiting their next handout of taxpayers’ money. They experience few feelings of accomplishment or self-confidence, and never learn self-control or responsibility. Public education indoctrinates children from preschool to graduate school that the federal government is there to care for them. Worst of all, they never realize America’s dream because they’ve been taught dependency is the new American dream, and that liberty is a luxury in which the government can no longer indulge its citizens.

People subject themselves and their families to government degradation, and then blindly vote for the same Democratic Party that has controlled their lives for decades. It all clearly demonstrates how they’ve allowed left-wing politicians to enslave them to government. Strangely, any effort made to unshackle them from government subordination, ricochets into attacks on freedom fighters.

Government dependency is an addiction as powerful as any drug, and it’s fed by the pushers of big-government standing on every political corner in America. As with any addict, his or her life can spiral totally out of control, but they will go to extraordinary lengths to keep supply lines open. These addicts can also count on their supply lines being guarded and protected by mainstream media and government-controlled public education. Of course, shameless politicians who ignore their sworn oath to uphold the Constitution, and then ignore human suffering caused by the welfare system, are primary purveyors of this evil.

Over a third of the citizens are on welfare, and more than half of them live in fear of big government. Businesses must play Obama’s game of crony capitalism or operate in an atmosphere of paralyzing uncertainty. Job creators’ fear of what new Obama dictates will befall them next, shy away from expansion. Growth involves risks that they are unwilling to face during Barack Obama’s radical presidency.

War on poverty programs intended to care for poor people are political conspiracies. They deliberately design them to keep enough Americans in an easily controlled, socioeconomically underprivileged class that enables Democrats to maintain an enormous, reliable, permanent voter base. Programs designed by politicians to care for the poor, breed more dependency and more poverty because that is their deliberate, intended purpose.

Barack Obama knows that creating jobs and allowing poor people to care for themselves is a losing political proposition. Therefore, he is unwilling to create a business-friendly environment and get out of the Nanny State business. Shameful numbers of Americans trapped in poverty will continue to escalate because politicians need votes; and because Obama has a Marxist ideology to advance. It is, after all, in the interest of this tyrant to keep his people poor…

Friday, September 14, 2012

Accountability is important to the Illinois Educators Association (IEA) as reflected in a recent radio spot that states: “supports quality educators, fights for our schools and holds politicians accountable.” Of course, the irony is the Chicago Teachers appear not to want to be held accountable for the results they are currently delivering as evidence by the push back regarding teacher evaluation during this first strike in 25 years.

Here are some of those accountable facts:

52% of the fourth grade students in reading are below national performance standards in 2011

Then looking at the average page for a teacher in Chicago being just over $71,000 (not including benefits) with 13 years of experience, the question is who is being accountable?

Accountability it appears from the teachers' perspective is all about more money and not being held accountable for the results. What is so ironic is during the Depression when poverty was probably more severe than it is today, students actually learned. Even though who dropped out, probably had a better education than many students today. I know this to be true as my father was a student in the Chicago Public Schools during the Depression when the family moved to Chicago to find work to pay the taxes on the family farm in northern Wisconsin. He later returned to the family farm and graduated high school at the age of 16.

Additionally what is always ignored is the number hours and days a teacher actually works. Currently within the Chicago Public Schools, the current school day runs five hours and 45 minutes for most
elementary schools and seven hours for most high schools. There is a proposal to extend those hours to seven hours for elementary schools and 7-1/2 hours for high
schools.

Back in the 1950's when I attended public elementary school, we had to be at school by 8:15am and did not leave until 3:15pm. High school was even longer from 7:30am to 3:15pm.

Did you notice these teachers are not working a full 8 hours?

Yes they probably take work home with them as many professionals in non education roles do as well. To get ahead in today's private sector does require working more than eight hours. The excuse we take work home no longer is valid given the annual salaries.

The legal minimum for school days in Illinois is 176 days and in Chicago it is 180 days. Then teachers usually receive additional days for professional development to parent teacher meetings. This increases the actual work days to 185.

However, the general full time workforce works 260 days (52 weeks times 5 days) and even taking away two weeks paid vacation for some, this reduces the number of actual days to 250. So how can one compare the annual salary of a person working 250 days to someone working 185? This is called comparing apples to oranges and yet the media allows teachers' unions to do this all day long.

Also since the average citizen of Chicago who pays the salaries of these striking teachers is working 65 more days and is receiving almost half of the pay ($46,877) of the teachers when factoring in all the benefits, does this make sense especially given the poor results?

Accountability is a two way street and yes we need quality teachers. We need to hold politicians accountable. However we also need to hold teachers accountable and stop paying for less than desired results because a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Our young people deserve more than what they are receiving from the classroom to the boardroom. Tags: Chicago Public School's Teachers Strike, CTU, accountability, high school graduation rates, fourth grade reading scores, teacher evaluation To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Monday, September 10, 2012

ARRA News Service-Neil Newhouse, Romney for President Pollster: Don't get too worked up about the latest polling. While some voters will feel a bit of a sugar-high from the conventions, the basic structure of the race has not changed significantly. The reality of the Obama economy will reassert itself as the ultimate downfall of the Obama Presidency, and Mitt Romney will win this race.

In his acceptance speech, President Obama did not offer any solutions for the millions of Americans unemployed or underemployed. But his convention speech was not the only big letdown to voters, as Americans also dealt with yet another dismal jobs report last week. President Obama is the only president in modern American history to stand before the American people asking for re-election with this many Americans struggling to find work. The key numbers in this election are the 43 straight months of 8% or higher unemployment, the 23 million Americans struggling to find work, and the 47 million Americans who are on food stamps.

Today, there is no question: Americans are not better off than we were four years ago, and that is why President Obama has struggled in this race. The truth is that some of President Obama’s allies are claiming victory, but others are acknowledging the unsustainable position in which they find themselves. This is evidenced in a recent quote in The New York Times by an Obama Administration official saying, “It’s certainly not what I would call the position we wanted to be in at this point in the race…He’s going to have to make the case that we wouldn’t even be at 8 percent if it weren’t for him.”

Consider the following points:

The Obama Economy: The stakes are very high in this election, and voters understand the future of our country is on the line. This may be lost on those living within the hyper-political world in and around the Beltway, but it is not lost in communities in battleground states. In short, the Romney-Ryan campaign understands Americans struggling in the Obama economy will determine the outcome of the race, and once the preponderance of information about the President’s failed policies – combined with Mitt Romney’s vision to strengthen the middle class – are communicated,our nation will move in a different direction.

All Signs Point to a Tight Race: Those watching the daily tracking polls know that, while the President has seen a bounce from his convention, his approval has already begun to slip, indicating it is likely to recede further. In eight states, Pollster.com’s reporting of the most recent statewide polls puts the margin between the two candidates at less than three points, virtually guaranteeing a tight race.

Next, the battlefield has actually expanded, not contracted. Note that Wisconsin is now in play and our campaign is now up with ads in that state, while the latest poll numbers from the Albuquerque Journal in New Mexico show the race closing there. And this tightening is not an anomaly. Consider the traditional Democratic strongholds of New Jersey and Connecticut, won by President Obama in 2008 by margins of 15 points and 22 points, respectively. In both states, Pollster.com’s reporting of the most recent statewide polls puts Obama’s lead at only seven points in each of these states.

In North Carolina, fresh off of hosting the Democratic National Convention, the Obama campaign is laying the groundwork for a stealth withdrawal. In a state the President won by a mere 14,000 votes in 2008, all one has to do is look at the Obama campaign’s television buy in the state to understand how they view their chances there. The Obama campaign’s North Carolina television buy has dropped 35% compared to June, and they have run more than twice as much advertising over the past two weeks in Rochester, Minnesota (hitting a small slice of Iowa), than they have in any North Carolina market.

Historical Data: Political campaign historians will recall President Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan by a near double digit margin late in the fall in 1980. In that race, the voters made their decision based on the key issues confronting the nation and it determined the outcome. On the economy, the most important issue of this race, Mitt Romney leads by 51%-45%, according to the most recent CNN/ORC poll.

Targeted Campaign: The Romney-Ryan campaign is running deeply local and targeted efforts in each of the states focusing on the voter groups that will make the difference on Election Day. Anyone asserting a “one-size-fits-all-campaign” effort is being put forward is simply misinformed, as evidenced by the 15 different ads released by the Romney Ryan campaign this past Friday and now running in nine states, including Wisconsin.

New Money Advantage: All of this is not possible without resources, and the Romney-Ryan campaign and the Republican Party have a real advantage. In August alone, the Romney Victory effort raised more than $111 million, marking the third straight fundraising month of more than $100 million, putting us on a very strong financial footing for the final two months.

Energy and Enthusiasm: CNN/ORC’s most recent polling shows that 62% of Republicans are “extremely” or “very” excited about this election, while only 56% of Democrats report being “extremely” or “very” excited. This Republican enthusiasm advantage has manifested itself in an unprecedented and historic grassroots effort that will have a significant impact on turnout in battleground states on Election Day. For instance, as of today, Victory volunteers have already knocked on more doors than during the entire 2008 campaign. (2.72 million in 2012 through September 8 compared to 2.43 million overall in 2008.)

Romney's Ground Game: During last weekend’s “Super Saturday,” we crossed the 20 million volunteer voter contact threshold. Also, the Romney campaign knocked on more doors last week than in any week during the 2008 campaign. More than 55,000 volunteers have knocked doors or made phone calls for Victory this year and that number is growing by the week. And volunteers have collected person-to-person identification information on nearly 1.7 million swing voters in battleground states thus far. And the numbers are even more startling when one looks at individual states. For instance, in Ohio alone, five times more phone calls and 28 times more door knocks have been made than at this time in 2008. This past Saturday, more than 100,000 doors were knocked on by Victory volunteers in the Buckeye State. And in Wisconsin, five times more phone calls and 72 times more door knocks have been made than at this time in 2008. And the list goes on and on.

Mitt Romney will be the next President. The outcome of this race will ultimately be determined in favor of Governor Romney because he has the better leadership skills, the better record, and the better vision for where he wants to take the country. These advantages are being fueled by the commitment and determination of volunteers and voters to change direction and move our country on a path toward economic growth and job creation. In short, the combination of having the superior candidate, being in a margin-of-error race with an incumbent President, having a cash advantage, and having an unprecedented grassroots effort and a winning message on the economy ensure that Americans will make a change in leadership in Washington on November 6.Tags:Election 2012, November, 2012, pollster, Neil Newhouse, Romney for President, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

By Jim Mullen: At a time when the country was feeling poorly, Barack Obama came to America’s door selling his “snake oil socialism.” He slathered us with pretty words, promised miraculous healing, and sold us on Dr. Obama’s magic elixir. Unfortunately, Dr. Obama’s prescription was nothing more than massive doses of government with orders to relinquish our American penchant for liberty. He administered it all by force-feeding the country unhealthy daily doses of Karl Marx’s indoctrination. Never a day passed that he didn’t counsel us to abandon the Founding Principles of our nation and slip quietly into his collectivist, mega-government ideology.

Now, at election time, Obama has the unenviable task of making new rules and coining new phrases to defend the indefensible, and justify the unjustifiable. Moreover, he must convince voters that his lies are really truths. Every leftist policy implemented by this President resulted in catastrophic consequences for the nation. He exacerbated old problems and created a morass of new evil from which Americans may never recover.

How does one find cover and hide from one’s own record? How does one tell bald-faced lies and get people to believe them? Simply by doing what Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany said. “If you repeat a lie often enough people believe it.” Thus, Obama’s reelection campaign thrust becomes, “Are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?” Obama finds no lie too outlandish and no truth worth telling in his desperate attempt to, once again, hoodwink the American people and win another election.

However, another very pressing problem confronts this community organizing conman; he must erase from the memories of Americans, the horrific deceit, the lawlessness, the anti-Americanism, and the ever-increasing economic disasters brought on by his leftwing policies. Likewise, he must cover the fact that his oath to “… preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States" was summarily ignored to quench his thirst for Marxism.

He designs all of his outlandish, far-fetched fabrications, his fanciful narratives, and the ferocious attacks on freedom-loving people to divert attention from his abysmal record and broken promises. Mr. Obama must somehow reset America’s memory to four years ago, and make people forget the ruinous consequences of his presidency. In short, this President must attempt a psychological and cognitive lobotomy on the country to make us forget his promises and his entire presidency. He’s doing this by doubling down on his blame game, escalating the excuses, and putting into overdrive, his diversions of deceit and personal attacks.

Doctor Obama is working furiously in a desperate, unrestrained campaign to position his reelection campaign into a spectacle of public relations and propaganda. He knows his political future hinges on Americans forgetting how he used such pretty words to run a con on the country, and then turned into the pompous, arrogant, lawless President now occupying the Oval Office.

This President assured us that he would promote a new and different respect for the United States globally and radically improve national security. What he delivered was a more dangerous world, and a new low in respect around the globe. World leaders view the U. S. President as naïve, ineffectual, and weak. He emboldened, enabled, and strengthened our enemies, and then went out of his way to insult and diminish our friends. He must not allow voters to conjure up memories of his apology tours around the world to atone for America’s sins, promises to give Putin what he wants after the American Election, and the out-right hostility shown toward England and Israel.

We must not call to mind Obama’s most “transparent administration” promise devolved into cover up after cover up, and then culminated in spending enormous time and taxpayer resources perverting and thwarting the justice system. Another term of this unprincipled administration will lead to unprecedented anarchy.

He wants us to forget his promise of working for the middleclass. His only work was to use every Marxist trick to destroy jobs and turn the country into a dependent welfare state. Unemployment, food stamps, and disability numbers grew at disgraceful, unheard-of rates. A promise to work for the middleclass led to the greatest destruction of the middle class in history and over a million fewer people gainfully employed now than when Obama took office. Obama defines success by the numbers of people he shifts from work to government dependency.

It’s essential to the President’s reelection that voters stop discussing the failed, wasteful stimulus, Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, unparalleled regulations, $1.84 gasoline, crushing the Canadian pipe line and the unconditional refusal to allow drilling. We must not recall the “contempt of court ruling” when he illegally stopped offshore drilling, nor his unlawful amnesty to illegal aliens that takes more jobs from beleaguered American workers. He must connive to make voters forget about Fast and Furious, the War on Coal, and his fiat eliminating the lawful work requirements for welfare recipients.

For Obama to win reelection, voters must never remember his fraudulent promises of 5 million new energy jobs, healthcare costs dropping by $2500 per family by the end of his first term, cutting the deficit in half in his first year, and lifting 2 million Americans from poverty by jolting the economy back to life.

Lastly, he wants us to forget the 5 trillion dollars of new “Obama debt,” the slowest economic recovery in our history, and record numbers of people on welfare and disability. Additionally, thousands of businesses are afraid to hire or expand because of his anti-free enterprise policies.

For the survival of our country, Americans must never forget the destruction brought about by this President, and must take their memories to the polls. Also, remember that it’s the smell and sting of the spray that makes predators steer clear of the skunk. Barack Obama has the skunk’s defense down to a science. He learned early on that anyone in his meadow would think twice about attacking him, once they experience the sting and smell of the spray from his favorite radical, Saul Alinsky, and his “Rules for Radicals.”

RULE 5 “ Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.

RULE 12 is also noteworthy over the entire duration of Barack Obama’s presidential tenure, and even more-so during this reelection campaign. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy.

Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” epitomize Obama’s every speech, every press conference, every interview, his reelection campaign strategy, and indeed, his entire presidency.

This is the disturbing legacy of Barack Obama’s four years in Washington; dozens of broken promises and stark failures accompanied by his screeching, bitter, hate-filled rhetoric of class warfare, race hustling and America bashing. A far cry to be sure, from the smooth-talking, glib, medicine show performer who made his appearance at America’s door four years ago selling “Hope and Change.”

Obama’s promises last just long enough to hook the marks, reel them in, and collect the cash. All great con artists are experts at plying their trade, and Obama is one of the all-time best.

Meanwhile, Saul Alinsky and Joseph Goebbels would be proud of their most dedicated disciple, Barack Obama. The vilification, scorn, ridicule, derision, and denigration continue relentlessly. The Constitution and our nation are burning, and Americans suffer unmercifully from their misplacement of trust. Do we need, or can we afford, four more years of Doctor Obama’s ruthless force-feeding of his deadly “Hope and Change elixir?”
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Jim Mullen, Parkersburg, WVhttp://freedomforusnow.comhttps://twitter.com/freedomforusnowTags:Barack Obama, Lobotomy, America, forgetting the facts, the economy, bid spending, government waste, debt ceiling, national debtTo share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Monday, September 3, 2012

By Rick Manning: The faces of Labor Day are different in 2012 than they have been in the past, all 23 million of them.

The traditional end of summer is greeted with cookouts, last splashes in the swimming pool, and final trips to the beach, but it is something much more in this election year.

Labor Day is a reminder of the unemployed, underemployed and those who don’t even bother looking for a job anymore because they don’t believe any are available.

Labor Day will also be a time when current and former Labor Secretaries come out from wherever they have been hiding, to talk about the nation’s employment situation.

This year, they can stay at home. They are not needed.

Everyone knows the state of the nation’s labor force — wages are falling, work is hard to find, and prices are rising again at both the gas pumps and in the supermarkets. Retirement plans for many in the labor force are delayed, and parents worry that their children will suffer a failure to launch due to an inability to find a job.

In fact, the unemployment rate over the past three years has only managed to stay slightly below the final three years of the Great Depression when the labor force is counted the same way.

Yet, ever persistent Obama Administration officials will infest television screens on Labor Day attempting to explain his “new normal” of 8.3 percent unemployment, blaming his predecessor and pretending that they hadn’t been in office for almost four years.

The same people who bashed previous Administrations for only creating jobs for “hamburger flippers” will tell America how not having a job is better than not having that one.

They also will attempt, for one more time before the election, to convince America that an economy that has only 37,000 more people employed today than when Obama took office is moving forward.

Think about that for a moment.

The civilian non-institutionalized population which consists of people over the age of 16 who are not in the military or incarcerated has increased by more than nine and a half million people since Obama took office, yet only 37,000 more people have a job today after four years of his policies.

If Americans care to watch these officials pontificate and gyrate through talking points, they will likely be watching with the same mindset as Ricky Ricardo used to have when he would say to Lucy, “You got some ‘splainin to do.”

Of course, the truth of the matter is that the only people who are likely to see and comment on Team Obama’s Labor Day media assault will either be those who already have their minds made up, or those who are paid to watch.

The rest of America will be enjoying the end of summer and hoping that next spring will bring change and renewed hope.
--------------Rick Manning is the communications director for Americans for Limited Government.Tags:Labor Day, Reminder, unemployed, lack of jobs, Rick Manning, William Warren, Obama rhetoric,To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Phil Kerpen, Contributing Author: Obama’s astonishing takeover of the automobile industry, unlike his health care takeover, occurred without even a vote of Congress. Yesterday, to much fanfare, the administration announced its astonishing ratcheting up of vehicle fuel economy standards to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. These regulations — I call them “ObamaCar” — were accomplished not through open debate in Congress, but through corrupt backroom deals in which our elected officials had no voice.

ObamaCar will, according to the administration’s own estimates, add over $2,900 to the price of a new car. This low-ball estimate was created by using a brand-new cost-estimating methodology that uses arbitrary factors to produce a cost estimate for a vehicle considerably lower than the total cost of its individual parts.

An analysis by the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), which followed the government’s usual methodology, found the cost impact would be $4,800 per vehicle. But NADA also found that even the usual methodology has historically underestimated the actual cost impact by an enormous factor. NADA suggests a worst-case scenario of a $12,349-per-vehicle price jump.

Even using the EPA’s official low-ball estimate, NADA’s analysis found that “6.8 million licensed drivers will no longer qualify for a loan on that least expensive new vehicle.” So people will buy used cars, or drive their old cars longer. There will be less efficient, dirtier vehicles on the road, and reliable, affordable transportation will be much less accessible.

And if you can afford a car under ObamaCar, will it actually be a car you want to drive? Even the vaunted hybrids only get around 35 to 40 miles per gallon — if you’re light on the gas. Cato scholar Pat Michaels has observed that the third-generation Prius maxes out at 50 miles per gallon, but its vehicle weight is too heavy to get much more than that. At 54.5 miles per gallon, cars will be smaller, lighter, less crash-worthy, less powerful, and less comfortable than you can even imagine. A nice-sized family vehicle? Good luck.

How did this happen?

The Supreme Court opened the door for the misuse of the 1970 Clean Air Act with its decision in Massachusetts v. EPA in 2007. That five-to-four decision — an absurd act of judicial activism — allowed the EPA to transform the 1970 Clean Air Act into a global warming law, regulating fuel economy standards under the pretext of regulating tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions.

The principal author of the Clean Air Act, Democratic U.S. Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, said this of the decision back in 2008: “In last year’s Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, the court stated that it believed that greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act. This is not what was intended by the Congress and by those who wrote that legislation. … So we are beginning to look at a wonderfully complex world which has the potential for shutting down or slowing down virtually all industry and all economic activity and growth.”

Then-Climate Czar Carol Browner oversaw the secret negotiations with the auto industry over these new global warming regulations. (She quietly resigned from the White House last year, just before her role in delaying Solyndra layoffs past the 2010 election was made public.)

Mary Nichols, the chair of the California Air Resources Board, was the other key player in a game of bad cop and really bad cop; basically, Browner told the auto industry that if it didn’t acquiesce to these new fuel economy rules, California would be given a free hand to impose its own, even more destructive regulations that — because many states have adopted California standards — would cripple the industry. Nichols told The New York Times that Browner “quietly orchestrated” the secret negotiations between the White House, regulators, and auto industry officials. “We put nothing in writing, ever,” Nichols said.

That was the first backroom shakedown. Yesterday’s rule is the result of a second round that followed closely on its heels, and at this rate the third round may be well underway.

Congress never voted for these absurd standards, which will drive vehicle prices through the roof for no meaningful environmental benefits.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

The following links provide a wrap-up for each day of the 2012 Republican National Convention. They were written by ARRA News Service editor Bill Smith for Americans For Limited Government, a Washington independent conservative research think tank: